


ptitsa-troika

by Asvan



Category: Disco Elysium (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Mild Language, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:20:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22879366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asvan/pseuds/Asvan
Summary: "Oh troika, winged troika, tell me who invented you?"Another Dolorean dreamscape.Now with beautiful fanart by QwertyRipTw!
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	ptitsa-troika

YOU – You find yourself standing in a seemingly abandoned wooden mansion. All the doors and windows are ajar, but you can’t see anything on the outside, except for the roaring blizzard.

THE MANSION – The interior is breathtakingly beautiful – the furniture, the décor, the art – but you can’t really make out the details. As soon as you focus, it all fades from view.

THE FRESCOS – There are birds painted on the walls. Big, elegant birds with human heads. Some of them are wearing ornate jewelry, the others – patterned scarves. All of them are crying.

THE FRESCOS - The birds look at you with their incredibly human faces and weep, pearlescent tears falling (knock! knock!) on the floor. They are all beautiful, with their quiet, mournful beauty – but none as radiant as her.

DOLORES DEI– She stands in the middle of an empty throne room in her white summer dress, her lungs glowing through her chest, as the snow drifts through the open windows. It is extremely cold here. She doesn’t seem to mind.

YOU –You cannot quite comprehend what time is it– there are no visible light sources except for the glowing lungs and the golden hair of Her Innocence, but it’s not dark in the room. It would seem like the grey light of the winter morning, if not for the unyielding feeling of uneasiness that fills you when you try to see something – anything – beyond the windows.

DOLORES DEI – “And here we meet again.” – She smiles, ever-merciful, but you feel that this smile is not meant to comfort you.

DOLORES DEI – “The others warned you – it will be a torture to remember. Disco Inferno, but without the disco part”, – her hair flows gently in the breeze, laws of physics giving under her well-manicured hands.

PAIN THRESHOLD – You can no longer feel your feet.

DOLORES DEI – “There is no coming back, Harry. You are doomed to spend the rest of your dreams here, with Me. But I do not want that”, - her face is so beautiful your heart aches and your knees give in and it hurts so, so much to look at her, but you cannot look away. – “You’ve trapped Me in your brain, *again*, and so I will break free. After all, I have a lot of duties to attend to. It will hurt you, Harry, and it should – you’ve done this to Me! It is all your fault and you will suffer forever for it, picking up the pieces of the shrine built in My name, only to drop them again with your shaking hands.”

DOLORES DEI – “I can feel it even now. You’ve gotten worse since you decided to stop drinking. But you could not let go of it completely, am I right? Two weeks is all you could manage; but then those drugs in the coat – you just *had* to drink some beer afterwards. You are a failure, Harry. Your life was one letdown after the other, a carousel of bad choices and disappointed people. How does it feel to be back on the ride?” – She is ever so gentle, the cadence of her voice smoothing the rough edges of your soul before twisting the knife plunged right into the centre.

PAIN THRESHOLD – You burn from the inside, a fire made of needles that assaults your organs, *all of them*, a torturous device born from within and amplified by the cold.

YOU – Tears start streaming down your face, your lashes freezing together and then melting again. It hurts, but not as much as it should. You wish desperately for a gun.

THE SIRINS – They are no longer crying, looking over your shivering form with cold amusement instead. You are left alone with your ordinary mortal tears.

DOLORES DEI – “Why are you still alive? Is there any worth left in you, or has it all been replaced with poisoned liver tissue?” – She is still smiling gently, the calm air around her not reaching you, never close enough.

PAIN THRESHOLD – Your knees finally give in, and you drop into the snow. Your body is finally starting to feel *warm* again.

THE SNOW – The snow drifts that came from the windows surround you. They are inlaid with silver filigree, complicated yet elegant in their frozen beauty. You probably ruined some of it when you fell down. You are worthless. You always ruin things, you stupid fucking piece of shit idiot. Why won’t you just die already?

ENCYCLOPEDIA [Medium: Success] – It won’t take much. You feel warm already, then it will get hot, and then, finally, you will fall asleep, forever.

YOU – Yes, I would like that. Let’s just lie here and wait until death comes.

DOLORES DEI – “Oh, Harry… I won’t let you go that easily”, - her voice is soft and compassionate and so painful to hear that you shudder. Something in your body moves again. The cold returns.

DOLORES DEI – “Come on, get up! You have a ride to catch!” – She walks to a window and suddenly it expands, the entire section of the wall disappearing; a gust of biting wind messes up your hair. Hers is still immaculate.

YOU – You get up, shakily, your body protesting loudly, and wander towards the breach. The pale expanse beyond is incomprehensible. You don’t want to go in there.

AUTHORITY [Impossible: Failure] – But you have to. She told you so.

YOU – You plunge right into the frozen beyond.

YOU – As you lift your head from the snow drift you fell into, you see her again.

DOLORES DEI – She stands, regal, next to a sleigh and three fiery horses hitched to it.

THE TROIKA – The horses are beautiful, with their proud heads and thin legs, manes curling into tight locks. They are impatient, neighing and shuffling their feet – you notice a lot of red hoofprints in the snow. 

INLAND EMPIRE – If it’s blood, it’s probably yours.

YOU – You think you wouldn’t mind if this troika trampled you to death. You’d actually prefer it.

DOLORES DEI – “Well, get in! I don’t have all day. Once you are gone I can be on My way as well.”

YOU – You clumsily climb into the sleigh. There is no coat to cover yourself with; the seats are frozen. You couldn’t care less.

DOLORES DEI – Her Innocence pats the neck of one of the horses and whispers something into its ear. It nods, and the troika starts picking up the pace.

DOLORES DEI – She doesn’t look at you as you leave.

YOU – You look at her until your eyes give out and she is incomprehensible among the pale nothingness of the planes.

YOU – You ride and ride, and somewhere along the way night finally falls. The sky clears, and for the first time in what seems like forever you see the stars. They twinkle, distant and eternal, lighting your way ahead. There is still nothing but snow surrounding you, and the horses go and go without tiring. You are warm again, and the rhythmic movement of the sleigh cradles you to sleep.

INLAND EMPIRE – Good night, Harry.


End file.
